Dotfiles for different systems or what

[Ra2-IFV]

I read this, so chezmoi is not suitable for managing files outside home directory, even I'm the only user in system 😢 going to learn ansible
But I still have some questions, how to apply specific dotfiles only when conditions are met? I use chezmoi on multiple systems (windows/unix), so I have system-specific dotfiles.
I also see this include-files-from-elsewhere, is it recommended to split the only chezmoi repo into more repos? For example, dotfiles, dotfiles-windows and dotfiles-linux, manage them by editing .chezmoiexternal.toml

[halostatue]

I believe you have misapprehended the purpose, scope, and power of chezmoi.

As stated, chezmoi is a home directory ("dotfiles") manager. That does not mean that it cannot interact with or modify system state, but that doing so requires scripts and accepted programmatic interfaces for modifying such state. For example, on macOS, you can use the defaults program to change system-wide settings and brew or macports or other such mechanisms to install tools on your system. On windows, you could use scripts to call regedit and make registry changes. On Linux, I don't know as I don't really use it (though #3659 points to an interesting option and way of using chezmoi).

With respect to multiple platform support, this is natively supported by templating and scripting, and there are extensive examples in the documentation, in the show-and-tell section of the discussions, and linked to in various issues. I have some consideration for Linux in my dotfiles although I am exclusively on macOS (halostatue/dotfiles). Others to look at are twpayne/dotfiles, felipecrs/dotfiles, and bradenhilton/dotfiles. Most of these and more can be found with the chezmoi topic search.

[Ra2-IFV]

I know, I'm not asking chezmoi to manage files outside home directory, I'm seeking for different home directory setups for different systems. I mean, if I'm running linux, chezmoi will generate some configs that only for other systems (scoop, pwsh, brew etc.) It's fine to keep them there but not graceful enough, and I found this in examples:
.chezmoiexternal.toml.tmpl

{{- if eq .chezmoi.os "linux" }}
[".config/xxx"]
  type = "xxx"
  ...
{{- end }}

That's what I'm looking for I guess? Store them in different repos, then checkout repos with template functions.
I know chezmoi is very powerful, but I'm also a bit confused after I read all the docs, I'm dumb. The examples are very useful for me, and I have never tried to check for it. Thanks.

[halostatue]

Look at .chezmoiignore. Externals should be used only for full externals (like oh-my-zsh, if that's your thing).

[bradenhilton]

@Ra2-IFV You don't need separate repos or branches. You can use .chezmoiignore to prevent these files from appearing on systems they aren't supposed to be on.

Manage machine-to-machine differences also outlines a few methods.

[Ra2-IFV]

Look at .chezmoiignore. Externals should be used only for full externals (like oh-my-zsh, if that's your thing).

Oh fuck that's great, I misunderstood this because I thought it works like .gitignore, applies when running chezmoi add
https://www.chezmoi.io/user-guide/manage-machine-to-machine-differences/#ignore-files-or-a-directory-on-different-machines
Just be more careful when reading docs

[halostatue]

Do note that .chezmoiignore does not work like .gitignore in sometimes surprising ways. In particular, recursive matches (**) and negation (!) sometimes interact in surprising (but entirely understandable) ways. The best way to check this is with chezmoi unmanaged and chezmoi ignored (this shows things that are managed, but are incorrectly excluded by .chezmoiignore).

See my .chezmoiignore for details (it will be updated shortly with some tweaks based on chezmoi ignored).